The hardest part to making this clam chowder is cleaning and cutting the leek. Leeks are notorious for trapping dirt between their leaves. I cut off the dark green parts first and then cut the leek into quarters lengthwise leaving the root intact. Then I cut it thinly crosswise.
In the recipe below you will see that I use bottled clam juice and the juice that the canned clams come in as my soup stock. There are lots of much more complicated ways to make this soup. You could use actual clams and make your own stock but this recipe works for me.
I have slimmed the recipe down a good deal. Two tablespoons of heavy cream is not much. We put in at least twice as much last night. More cream makes it so yummy!
Yesterday we met up with some old friends whom we have not seen since pre-pandemic. We went to a restaurant overlooking SF Bay and enjoyed the company and the view. From our seats we could see the Oakland Bay Bridge, the skyline of SF, and the Golden Gate Bridge.
From left, Oakland Bay Bridge, San Francisco skyline, Golden Gate Bridge
As you would imagine restaurants on the water specialize in seafood and I ordered Togarashi ahi tuna, with pickled radishes, shishito peppers, and rice. In my excitement to eat, I forgot to take a picture. But it looked something like this.
Togarashi ahi tuna (photo from good food.com.au)
It was pretty good, not great. But we were there to visit with our friends and the food was pretty secondary even for me. Everybody else had salads and an appetizer. I kind of felt choosing the tuna was a healthier selection.
Due to eating a big lunch we decided on just having our usual lunch for supper so I made myself a open-faced chicken sandwich with lettuce and a pickle with blueberries and yogurt for dessert. And I forgot to take a photo of that too!!
We will get back to our planned menu on Friday with the Rhode Island clam chowder. Instead of having leftovers for dinner on Saturday we will make the Ethiopian lentils then.
Pasta two days in a row!? It makes me so happy! This delicious dish which I like to call Lightened Up Shrimp Scampi is an example of how to take a recipe with too many calories and pare it down so it can be a weeknight dinner.
Lightened up shrimp scampi with whole grain spaghetti and broccoli
You will notice that the broccoli takes up more than a third of the plate. Smaller portion size helps to make the spaghetti manageable as well as fill you up. I included the recipe the last time we made it and you can find it here.
Penne and asparagus are the perfect partners for this dish. By cutting the asparagus on the bias you end up with a shape that mimics the penne.
This is also one of those pasta meals that from the time you put the water on to boil until the pasta is cooked is plenty of time to prepare the sauce.
First I sauteed the mushrooms and then added the onions. After a few minutes of onion cooking I added the sliced garlic. By this time the water is boiling and the penne is cooking. The asparagus stems go in and I use a splash of pasta water to steam them briefly. Just as the pasta is being dropped into the vegetables, I add the asparagus tips. Stir it around and add a little reserved pasta water to make a sauce with a teaspoon of olive oil.
John finishes his dish with finishing oil, toasted pine nuts, and parmesan cheese. I go more bare bones keeping it vegan with just a drizzle of good olive oil.
Since we ended up not eating our planned dinner last night, I thought I would do a post on what I eat for lunch. I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a popcorn snack every day and still managed to lose 60 lbs. over the last year. And I have stayed at my goal weight plus or minus two pounds for 6 months.
I am a pretty hungry person generally so I need to eat volume without an abundance of calories. On the plus side I do not eat between meals except for my planned popcorn snack around 5:30 PM and I never eat desserts unless it is for a really special occasion. I play tennis three times a week and try to walk some (which I really dislike) on the other days.
My first lunch pictured is a vegan/vegetarian stir-fry with tofu served over cauliflower rice.
Tofu/vegetable stir-fry
The second picture is a big salad with some chicken breast meat and half a small avocado.
Mixed greens salad with chicken, mushrooms, and avocado
Finally, here is my “famous” null soup. If you are following the current WW plan, it has zero points. (I used to make this without chicken but the current WW diet gives you chicken breast for zero points.
Null soup with chicken
My usual lunch, because I do not go to all the trouble of making these more elaborate lunches every day, is an open-faced chicken sandwich with mustard and lettuce, a pickle, and non-fat Greek yogurt with blueberries.
Another day I will show you what I eat for breakfast. I just want to stress that you do not have to starve yourself to lose weight!
While John’s omelet dinner is truly a BFD, my BFDs have morphed into any dish that includes eggs. This week’s dish is an Asian inspired vegetable stir-fry with a sliced egg-only omelet on top and cauliflower rice underneath. I know me well enough to have learned that not eating enough for dinner will put me on the path of finding something else to eat around 10PM.
Sauté your mushrooms, onions, and garlic first and then add the rest of the ingredients from the hardest to the most delicate afterwards. I started with the carrots and celery and ended up with the kale greens.
Vegetable stir-fry with egg on top and cauliflower rice underneath
Due to some sort of glitch my menu did not appear in the post. So here is a redo with, hopefully, the actual menu.
I have my menu set for the week coming up. It includes four vegan/vegetarian meals, two shellfish dinners, and a chicken entree. Now all I have to do is make my shopping list based on the menu and I am set for the week!
I have my menu set for the week coming up. It includes four vegan/vegetarian meals, two shellfish dinners, and a chicken entree. Now all I have to do is make my shopping list based on the menu and I am set for the week!
Saturday night is usually Leftovers For Dinner (LFD) but the only leftovers we had were some rice and some farro. So I mixed those together and added asparagus as our vegetable and scallops for the protein.
John always does a stellar job searing the scallops. He cooks them for about three minutes on each side. He bastes them with butter at the end of cooking. So delicious!
I had the very hard job (not) of mixing together the farro and rice. I heated it up in the microwave. A squeeze of lemon on top and some chives from the garden made the side dish seem new. I also steamed the asparagus. This was an easy, semi-LFD that seemed like a special occasion meal.
Grilled flank steak with grilled russet potatoes and sherried B. sprouts
Here is how this dinner shaped up. John marinated the flank steak which is a lean but tasty cut of beef which is tender when you slice it across the grain. Then he grilled it to a perfect medium rare.
While he was doing his thing I microwaved the potatoes until they were almost done and then sliced them in half and smeared on some olive oil and salt. At this point I handed the potatoes off to John for some grill time.
While he finished up grilling, I started the sprouts in a large covered pan with the cut sides facing down. I added about a cup of water, a quarter teaspoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons of butter, salt, and maybe two tablespoons of dry Marsala wine. These ingredients cooked covered until the sprouts were almost done and then I took off the lid and let the water evaporate. The sprouts then browned in the butter and sugar. They were super yummy.
We opened a bottle of 2005 Robledo Cabernet Sauvignon and toasted farewell to what we hope will be the last week of a pandemic heavy restrictions. All our adult family is now vaccinated and the grandkids are now eligible and will get their first shots on Monday. It is a time of celebration indeed!
Omnivore 